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A new real estate directory and support center for Long Island home sellers and Long Island home buyers is now up and running. You can check it out at http://www.homesearch.li for home buyers and http://www.sellmyhouse.li for home sellers.

This is a great resource. The websites both sport an app for smartphones, cover the entire Long Island MLS listings and provide a large selection of exclusive listings.

Joan Rivers was an astonishingly bold comedian. You were never quite sure if she was joking or really meant what she said.

Generations of people all over the world were entertained by her. She stood as an inspiration for other female comedians. No one ever doubted she would be around forever.

It comes as sad news that forever just ended. Days after throat surgery that went wrong somehow, Joan Rivers slipped away. She was 81 years old.

Back in the nineties I was sitting at a table next to Joan Rivers in the Concorde Hotel, a famous place in the Catskill region of New York. She was very quiet, just enjoying a meal. A waiter came over to the table and said "Excuse me, but dogs are not allowed in the restaurant". She had a carry bag with a small very well behaved Chihuahua in it next to her feet. Her answer to the gentleman was "The Chihuahua is in the bag.. and the bag is in the restaurant. Are bags allowed?" The waiter laughed and went about his work.

Sunday 6/15/2014, Casey Kasem passed away at the age of 82. It was Father's Day, and perhaps it was a special day as he no longer had to keep his feet on the ground and reach the stars. He could now go there himself.

Most people knew him as the host of America's Top 40, but Casey did other things that most of us never knew. One of his specialties was the voice of Shaggy on the Scooby Doo animated series.

Recently, Casey Kasem was at the heart of a dispute between family members as he withered away. His now widow was accused of isolating him from his daughters. In the end his daughters won out and were given rights to stop medication and a feeding tube he was receiving.

We will miss Casey Kasem. Until such time as we join him we all should follow his most famous words which he used at the end of every broadcast. "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars."

We've been running a test using Facebook advertising to promote pages and articles for several months.

Here are the results...

1. We did get likes and even a few users that replied.2. We did get some attention3. We wasted our money!

This is a very odd time for the on-line entities who are pushing advertising down our throats. They all say that their system works better than everyone else's does, but is that reality or just another story?

Testing all sorts of on-line advertising, including Facebook, Exact Seek, Yahoo/Bing, various advertising networks, blog posts, bookmarking sites, Twitter, Google+, banner advertising and just about everything we found one thing in common among all of them. Nothing returned enough results to justify the payout. Even print ads were not high enough payback on investment.

So, what worked? Surely something must be worth doing? Right??? Yes, there was something that worked better than all of the rest. It was face-to-face selling. Yes, the good old meeting worked best. A little time spent, and there was a new customer, who then told two friends, and so on, and so on. The growth from a personal approach is what really returned a significant gain in paying customers.

Does that mean that on-line advertising is a waste? No, I wouldn't go that far, as chances are that the customers did see the advertising which re-enforced their decision to buy from us, but it surely was not the golden egg.

So, now you know that advertising is good, but not good enough to make everything better. Next time you see a FIOS or Verizon Wireless commercial on TV, think about it. Did it make you change you mind, or just remind you that you have your own opinion. A friend telling you that s/he loved their service might sway you, but that ad? Not likely!

There you have it! Advertising in the new world.. different and yet still the same as it always was.

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Go to https://www.ydcwebhost.com and choose your package, then use code CELEBRATE at checkout. As long as you remain a customer of Your Data Center, the 40% discount will apply to your website hosting subscription. There are NO contracts here. Stay as long as you like :-)